MILWAUKEE — Speeding tickets come with a fine, but how much do they affect your insurance rate?
TMJ4 went to an insurance agent to find out how much just one speeding citation could make your insurance go up — and how long it takes for it to go back down.
Lorenze Fenner made a trip downtown that he’s been dreading for months.
“Watch your lead foot, you don't want to end up down here,” he said.
He was caught speeding 10 miles per hour over the limit in Milwaukee, so he went to municipal court to pay the price.
“The ticket was near $300,” Fenner said. "I wasn't even going that fast."
“So you get the ticket and you see how much the fine is, do you think about how much it’s going to affect your insurance?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
"I thought about it at first but I’m current on my insurance,” Fenner replied. “As far as a speeding ticket raising your rates, I never heard of that."
Octavio Padilla is an independent insurance agent in Milwaukee.
"They think it's just paying the fine but they don't see the consequence financially,” he said.
Padilla says when someone gets a speeding ticket, they should expect their rate to go up when their policy renews, which is typically every six months.
Padilla says insurance carriers check your driving record before the new term begins.
“Everyone’s rate is different depending on a variety of factors. What are those factors?” Jordan asked.
“It could be anywhere from the type of vehicle you drive combined with your age, combined with your credit. If you're single or married, your ZIP code and they go all based on risk,” Padilla replied.
Given that’s the case, TMJ4’s Project: Drive Safer team wanted to learn roughly how much a speeding ticket affects the price of car insurance.
"I used myself as an example,” Padilla said.
Padilla is a 40-year-old married man. He plugged in a ZIP code on Milwaukee’s south side and he searched the price for full coverage through Progressive Insurance on a 2015 sedan.
With a clean driving record, the rate came back at $219 a month.
If you add a speeding ticket for 10 m.p.h. over the limit, Padilla found the monthly rate jumps to $319, or $100 more.
Padilla says a speeding ticket for going 20 m.p.h. or more over the limit would cause his insurance to go up to $366 a month. That’s nearly $150 more a month than the rate for a clean driving record.
"Not only the impact monthly but what is going to be impacting you for the next three years,” he said.
Over a three-year period, Padilla says a speeding ticket for 20 m.p.h. over the limit would end up costing him an additional $5,292 for coverage.
Padilla says those rates don’t start going down until three years after the ticket and then it slowly decreases until you hit the 5-year mark. Padilla says that’s how long it takes to get back to a clean driving record for your insurance rate through Progressive.
"That's a good vacation, and thinking of only speeding, it’s going to only save you about 3 or 4 minutes tops,” he said.
Fenner had no idea one speeding ticket could eventually cost him far more than the fine itself.
"It really makes you think,” he said. “I’ve got to keep that in my pocket."
“If your rate goes up $100 a month, do you think that would change your driving behavior?” Jordan asked.
“It would, it sure enough would,” Fenner replied.
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